Second Language Acquisition Theory and Pedagogy

Fred R. Eckman, Jean Mileham, Rita Rutkowski Weber, Diane Highland, Peter W. Lee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135449056
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Lingüística

A volume on second-language acquisition theory and pedagogy is, at the same time, a mark of progress and a bit of an anomaly. The progress is shown by the fact that the two disciplines have established themselves as areas of study not only distinct from each other, but also different from linguistic theory. This was not always the case, at least not in the United States. The anomaly results from the fact that this book deals with the relationship between L2 theory and pedagogy despite the conclusion that there is currently no widely-accepted theory of SLA. Grouped into five sections, the papers in this volume:
* consider questions about L2 theory and pedagogy at the macro-level, from the standpoint of the L2 setting;
* consider input in terms of factors which are internal to the learner;
* examine the question of external factors affecting the input, such as the issue of whether points of grammar can be explicitly taught;
* deal with questions of certain complex, linguistic behaviors and the various external and social variables that influence learners; and
* discuss issues surrounding the teaching of pronunciation factors that affect a non-native accent.

Part III

INPUT: EXTERNAL FACTORS

Chapter 9

On the Teaching and Learning of Grammar: Challenging the Myths

Diane Larsen-Freeman

MAT Program, School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont

1. INTRODUCTION

There are a number of myths in circulation today about the teaching and learning of grammar. The following are but ten of them:

1.Grammar structures are meaningless forms. They are the skeleton, the bones of the language.

2.Grammar consists of arbitrary rules; the acquisition of the rules is also a somewhat arbitrary process.

3.Grammar structures are learned one at a time.

4.Grammar structures operate at the sentence and subsentence levels only.

5.Grammars are complete inventories; they explain all the structures in a language.

6.Grammar is an area of knowledge like vocabulary (as opposed to a skill like reading, writing, speaking, or listening).

7.Grammar is acquired naturally; it doesn't have to be taught.

8.Learners will eventually bring their performance into conformity with the target language; error correction is unnecessary.

9.All aspects of grammar structures are learned in the same way.

10.Grammar teaching and learning are boring.

I will mercifully stop at ten; there are others, and I am sure readers will have their own lists as well. It is no doubt also true that some would not agree with my assessment of these as myths. Bearing in mind the theme of this book, Second Language Acquisition Theory and Pedagogy, I will use second language acquisition (SLA) research and theory to demonstrate that certain of these are indeed myths. SLA theory will be invoked to refute numbers 1–3. SLA theory has also, in my opinion, contributed several items to the list. I will discuss these as well (Nos. 7–9). Then, in the spirit of reciprocity, I will consider what SL pedagogy can contribute to SLA theory. Next, I will point to some areas where I believe a collaborative effort between theorists and pedagogues would be welcome. Finally, I will conclude with an important caveat concerning the application of SLA theory. To begin with, then, how has SLA theory helped to counter some of these myths?

2. COUNTERING MYTHS 1–3

2.1 Myth 1: Grammar Structures Are Meaningless Forms

Perhaps this myth is a holdover from structural linguistics, in which forms in a language were described without appeal to meaning. As forms, grammatical structures were characterized by their morphology and syntax alone. Judging from a survey of pedagogical materials, 1 think it is clear that this assumption persists today. Textbooks introduce learners to grammatical structures by delineating their formal properties. It is not uncommon today, for example, to find materials introducing ESL/EFL students to the passive voice in English by demonstrating how a passive sentence is derived from its active counterpart. The transformationalists’ regard for the autonomy of syntax is manifest in this purely form-based description. Similarly, the follow-up to such an introduction is often a series of exercises in which students are instructed to transform active sentences into passive ones. To my mind, such an introduction to the passive voice is very misleading. Passive and active sentences sometimes have different meanings and always serve very different purposes. Moreover, the long-term challenge in acquiring the passive voice in English is not learning how to form it, but rather learning when to use it, that is, learning which discourse contexts favor the passive voice and which do not.

The reason I say that SLA research can refute Myth 1 is that quite early on in the evolution of the SLA field it was pointed out that the acquisition of the form of a grammatical structure was incomplete without the concomitant acquisition of its function. Wagner-Gough (1975) was the first, I believe, to make this point in print. Her subject, Homer, a five-year old Farsi speaker, used the -ing morpheme very early in his acquisition of English, as did the other subjects being reported on in the morpheme acquisition studies at the time. What Wagner-Gough noticed in Homer's performance, however, was that he used -ing not only for its target function but also to signal an imperative function. Other researchers that expanded on this theme were Andersen (1977), who demonstrated the folly of talking about the acquisition of the English article as though it were one structure, thus obscuring its many semantic uses; Bahns and Wode (1980), whose German-speaking subject used didn't for some time as a past-tense marker before he used it as a negator; and Huebner (1980), whose Hmong-speaking adult subject used a general Wh-question marker (waduyu) for all Wh-question words (e.g., Waduyu kam from? for Where are you from? and Waduyu kam? for Why did you come?) It is obvious, then, that one cannot talk about the acquisition of a form unless its function is also considered. Indeed, it is often said these days that the language acquisition process is all about learning to map form on function or form and meaning.

I think it is worth pointing out that when we elect to use two terms in tandem as a shorthand—form and function, or form and meaning—we should never lose sight of the fact that there are really three dimensions with which we need to be concerned: form, meaning, and function (use) (Larsen-Freeman, 1991 ). To return to the passive for our example, we can clearly see that there are three dimensions that must be mastered before any learner can be said to have acquired it. Its form requires a ‘be’ verb (the final auxiliary verb), a past participle, a transitive main verb, and when present, the ‘by’ preposition before the agent. We also should acknowledge its meaning as conferring focus on the theme or receiver of the action, rather than the agent, as happens in canonical word order, and the fact that passive sentences may convey a meaning different from that of the active voice with the same agent and theme. Finally its use: When or why is it used instead of the active voice? The answers are numerous: when the theme is the topic, when the agent is unknown or redundant or when one wishes to conceal it, etc.

Thus, with some impetus from SLA research and a little reflection, we have come to realize that grammatical structures are more than forms; therefore, their acquisition must entail more than learning how to form the structures. It must also include learning what they mean and when and why to use them as well. This awareness is extremely important from a pedagogical standpoint, of course, because as language teachers will attest, the learning challenge for students is not accuracy alone but meaningful and appropriate use as well. As such, grammar teaching does not mean merely teaching forms and it is certainly not limited to teaching explicit form-based rules.

2.2. Myth 2: Grammar Consists of Arbitrary Rules; Their Acquisition Is Also a Somewhat Arbitrary Process

I am afraid arguing against the first half of this myth will take me too far from my foregrounded objectives in this chapter, i.e. discussing the process of teaching and learning grammar. Suffice it to say that much of the apparent arbitrariness of grammar rules is dispelled when we look at language from a discourse perspective, that is, viewing language from this perspective helps us to see why the rules are the way they are. For the second half of this myth, I summarize what the SLA theory of interlanguage (Selinker, 1972)—which has been so fundamental to our understanding of the language acquisition process for the past two decades or so—has to say about the arbitrariness of the process.

Far from being arbitrary, learner interlanguages are thought to exhibit a fair degree of systematicity and order. Systematicity does not mean that learners use structures in a targetlike manner from their first exposure. What it does mean is that like natural languages, interlanguages (ILs) appear to be rule governed. There is variability in learner performance, to be sure, but it is typically systematic, that is, learners use certain forms erroneously by target-speaker standards but consistently as a response to certain extralinguistic factors such as task demands (Hulstijn & Hulstijn, 1984; Larsen-Freeman, 1975); topic, setting, and interlocutors (Bell, 1984), attention to form (Tarone, 1988), and planning time available (Crookes, 1989). There does seem to be some random or free variation, such as when a learner produces no go and don't go within moments of each other under seemingly identical conditions (Ellis, 1985). In fact, there is a fair degree of synchronic variability. Structures do cooccur with temporally and developmentally earlier constructions, and yet change over time follows established paths.

Many explanations for these developmental paths have been put forth, running the gamut from psychological explanations such as the shedding of speech-processing strategy constraints (Clahsen, 1987; Pienemann, 1985), and the invoking of Slobin-like operating principles (Andersen, 1988), to environmental ones having to do with factors in the input such as frequency of occurrence, perceptual saliency, or factors arising out of interaction with speakers of the target language (Larsen-Freeman, 1975; Lightbown, 1983; Long, 1980), and to linguistic ones having to do with markedness directionality (Eckman, 1981) and Universal Grammar (UG) principles and parameter resetting (e.g., Bley-Vroman, 1986; Flynn, 1987; Schachter, 1988; White, 1985). Continuing with our story of interlanguage I will address Myth 3.

2.3. Myth 3: Grammar Structures Are Learned One at a Time

IL theory posits that progress is not linear. Language acquisition is not a matter of steadily accumulating structural entities (Rutherford, 1987, p. 4). Backsliding is common, giving rise to so-called U-shaped behavior (Kellerman, 1985). Development is gradual, but occasionally there is a fundamental overhaul or restructuring of the underlying grammar (McLaughlin, 1990). A good example of this type of restructuring is reported in the work of Meisel, Clahsen, and Pienemann (1981). They reported that learners of German in their study would sometimes omit items that the learners had previously appeared to master. The omissions involved certain forms over which learners had to move other forms. McLaughlin (1990) speculated that this apparent backsliding resulted from a temporary restructuring of the system that involved an omission of certain elements to allow for the development of other elements. Thus, the acquisition of structures is interdependent and not a matter of simple aggregation.

3. SLA THEORY: HELPING US TO UNDERSTAND GRAMMAR LEARNING AND TRANSFORM TEACHING

As was just seen, SLA theory has been helpful in challenging the first three myths about the learning of grammar. Before moving on, I would like to underscore the significance of the contribution of SLA theory to the understanding of the learning of grammar. Although the description of SLA that I have just given may seem common...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• I Factors Affecting the L2 Setting
• II Input: Internal Factors
• III Input: External Factors
• IV Output: Factors Affecting Production
• V Output: Pronunciation
• Author Index
• Subject Index